Just finished the first chapter. No furigana is new for me but it didn’t seem that bad.
Comprehension wise there were a couple of things that had me confused at first but they were solved either reading further along or reading the questions/answers in this thread so there is hope.
I am intrigued so I’ll hopefully read more soon-ish.

Anyone else is having trouble with the names? I usually have trouble remembering names at the beginning of books in general, but with unfamiliar names with kanji I don’t know how to read… send help.
I may or may not have made an excel table with the names and readings for reference.

I would disagree, names exist just because, and are not used in any other context (usually)
And the kanji or reading are sometimes weird too, 高槻、西宮、修一、while sometimes the reading can be deduced by the kanji itself, there’s also different pronunciations, etc.

I mostly meant for an individual instance. I think it’s relatively easy to remember 高槻 = たかつき after a few times, and you only have to remember pronunciation + a specific person. That’s a lot less dense than all the contextually dependent information in, as seanblue said, a conjunction (grammar word?) or adverb.

But yeah, learning to read names as a whole is an impossible task
Or at least, a completely different world than regular reading, since they don’t even share the same characters a lot of the time.

I read chapter 4 earlier and luckily all my questions had been addressed in the thread, so thanks for that .
I’m not going to be so lucky with chapter 5 I think so bear with me and my potentially noob-y questions.

Chapter 5 questions:

Page 104

そのかかり俺んときもなんかちょーだい
Not sure about the meaning of this. Is it like… but then you have to do something for me (when my birthday comes)? Or something entirely different… And is that ん short for の?

Page 107

もらってしまった
Is this a simple “I took/accepted it” or does it have that unintentional action / I did something bad nuance to it? How do you even tell those things. I’m bad at this.

The rest of the chapter was surprisingly understandable so that’s nice.

Thoughts

I am enjoying this so far and I’m really curious about how things will develop. I’ve never seen any japanese media that treated this topic in a serious manner (but it’s not like I looked) so that’s intriguing too.
And I still can’t decide if 千葉さん is trying to be nice or just satisfying some fixation she has.

I might read another chapter later if life doesn’t decide to happen suddenly

そのかかり俺んときもなんかちょーだい
Not sure about the meaning of this. Is it like… but then you have to do something for me (when my birthday comes)? Or something entirely different… And is that ん short for の?

It’s かわり not かかり (mentioning in case you read it wrong and it’s not just a typo)

There is a conjunction そのかわり, but I’m not sure that’s the intended meaning here.

I basically took it the same way you did, that the kid is offering to get Shuuichi something because he wants something in return when it’s his birthday.

And yes, ん is short of の here.

Page 107

Sylph:

もらってしまった
Is this a simple “I took/accepted it” or does it have that unintentional action / I did something bad nuance to it? How do you even tell those things. I’m bad at this.

It does have that nuance here. Like “I took/accepted it (but maybe I shouldn’t have)”. You can also tell because Shuuichi’s next thought is やっぱり返した方がいいかなあ. He’s already regretting it and thinking about returning it.

For your general question, as far as I know てしまう has to either have this negative/unintentional nuance or it can mean “to do [attached verb] completely”. Personally, I don’t see the latter very often compared to the former.

I’ve never seen any japanese media that treated this topic in a serious manner (but it’s not like I looked) so that’s intriguing too.

That’s one of the reasons I liked the anime adaption so much and why I wanted to read the whole series. The anime, interesting enough, adapted the middle volumes of the series. So I’m excited to read the whole story now.

Yeah, typo, whoops.
Thanks for the answers. I guess if I see these things enough I’ll end up getting a feel for it.
It’s amazing how sometimes I don’t get something at all and then someone explains it a bit and suddenly it seems so clear.

seanblue:

The anime, interesting enough, adapted the middle volumes of the series.

That’s definitely unusual. But that just gives me more motivation to read until that part so I can figure it if it somehow makes sense to do that.

I hope I can read a decent amount of this before キノの旅 absolutely crushes all my hopes and dreams (and reading time).

I probably shouldn’t be posting but I just want to say that I finished the series already and the ending hurts my heart (in a good or bad way, you’ll have to find out.). You all are all in for an emotional roller-coaster ride. :’)

Where do you have a problem exactly?
Anyway, the mother says that she also had trouble with that topic (dreams for the future)
Then the sister tries to get Shuu’s attention, but Shuu just dismisses it saying that it’s obviously appearing on tv with Maiko-chan
She replies that there’s that too, but no actually it’s to get together with a teacher.
(Even though the next bubble points at the mother, it’s still her saying that) you know, there’s a cool teacher at school.
Well, he does have a wife and kids, and since he isn’t in charge of my class he probably doesn’t know me (mother: ah, so having an affair)
Right, I’d like to go for that…
… just kidding! Going for bath now.

だってさ is an explanation. The mother would not be explaining anything to the daughter in that context. And even if she did, there should be something coming after, but the daughter is taking instead.
So yes, I’m pretty sure about it.